Some law students find jurisprudence daunting, impersonal, dry and seemingly detached from practical affairs. William Twining believes that many jurists have been fascinating people struggling with questions that are both historically significant and relevant to contemporary issues. This book brings together previously published essays that centre on three related themes: reading Juristic texts, the role of narrative in law, and relations between theory and practice. Building on a pragmatic view of jurisprudence, the author explores different ways of reading and using Juristic texts, to set them in context, to bring them to life and to engage with the reader's own concerns. He applies this approach to throw fresh light on four familiar figures - Holmes, Bentham, Hart and Llewellyn. Challenging limited agendas and parochial points of view, Twining outlines a programme for a broad approach to legal theory in the context of globalization. He satirizes some bad habits in jurisprudence and explores in depth how stories can be seductive vehicles for cheating in legal contexts, yet are essential for making sense of disputes about fact or law.

William Twining, Research Professor of Law at University College London, UK, having been Quain Professor of Jurisprudence from 1982 to 1986.

Introduction. Jurist's Texts: R.G. Collingwood's autobiography: one reader's response; The bad man revisited; Academic law and legal philosophy: the significance of Herbert Hart; Talk about realism; Karl Llewellyn's unfinished agenda: law in society and the job of Juristic method; Reading Bentham; Imagining Bentham; Globalization, pluralism and post-modernism: Santos, Haack and Calvino; Reviving general jurisprudence; The great Juristic bazaar. Lawyers Stories: Lawyers stories; Anchored narratives: a comment; Good stories and true stories; Narrative and generalizations in argumentation about questions of fact; The ratio decidendi of the parable of the prodigal son; Index.